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A) No no, this is how Obama did it too
B) it refers to a country not a race, it's clearly race-agnostic policy. Why do you have to bring race into it
C) if they wanted to stay they should have been working on becoming citizens

they don't really care what is true or is not true, thats not the point. and so they can consistently claim this that they themselves know are not true, in order to support what they believe in. so arguing about facts, the definition of words, history, policy, these things arnt much use. because they dont care about something being true or not. this is why josh will site a paper that explicitly states the TSI has not increased, and then goes on to claim that it says it has. or look at literally the same pixels on the screen, showing a graph of it flat as a rail, and claim its increasing.

because facts arnt really a thing anymore.

and for the same reason when conservatives, trump himself, etc go back from there original claim, and say no, thats wrong, what we said wasn't true ... this doesn't stop folks from STILL defending it as true. or how we agreed at one point that trump changed the method of enforcement, and then 5 pages later, josh is arguing trump didn't change the method of enforcement. because it doesn't matter. he knows he can say literally anything, and then minutes later say the exact opposite thing, and there is no cognitive dissonance around it. thats how we get militant support for free trade, turning into militant support of tariffs, in less than 18 months.

this quote perfectly summing it up:

The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."

you can't have an intellectual conversation with the intellectually bankrupt. no matter how long worded his posts are.

Last edited by cockerpunk; 12-17-2018 at 05:04 PM.

social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

"In the survey, we showed respondents a brief description of the Green New Deal, which was identical to the first paragraph of this report (above). The description was followed by the question ?How much do you support or oppose this idea??

The survey results show overwhelming support for the Green New Deal, with 81% of registered voters saying they either ?strongly support? (40%) or ?somewhat support? (41%) this plan.

As expected, support is strongest among Democrats (92%). But a large majority of Republicans (64%) ? including conservative Republicans (57%) ? also support the policy goals in our description of the Green New Deal.

Notably, although our description of the Deal accurately provided details about the proposal, it did not mention that the Green New Deal is championed by Democratic members of Congress such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and John Lewis (D-GA). Other research has shown that people evaluate policies more negatively when they are told it is backed by politicians from an opposing political party. Conversely, people evaluate the same policy more positively when told it is backed by politicians from their own party.

Therefore, these findings may indicate that although most Republicans and conservatives are in favor of the Green New Deal?s policies in principle, they are not yet aware that this plan is proposed by the political Left. For any survey respondents who were previously unaware of the Deal, it is likely that their reactions have not yet been influenced by partisan loyalty."

i mean america was already losing our empire (have been since the mid 1990s), but holy smokes, trump has somehow figured out a way to cuck ourselves in front of the entire world, in a way i didnt even know was possible. its downright insane how effective he has been at making us weaker. i dont kid myself into thinking america has only been a source for good in the world, but trump's ability to weaken our position, to the point where even the basic security and basic level of checks against authoritarian regimes is gone. its shocking to be in a place like we are today. totally cucked by the arabs, by russia, and by china, amazing. never mind NK, which might as well have cut our dick off they schooled trump so badly.

while america has never been a source of total good in our foreign policy, we did provide basic world peace and security that the world can no longer count on. the world is less safe with trump in charge. and we, as americans, are far far far far less safe.

Last edited by cockerpunk; 12-23-2018 at 01:11 PM.

social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

"Angered by Defense Secretary James N. Mattis? harsh rebuke last week, President Trump on Sunday said he is ousting Mattis from his post two months earlier than planned and is instead naming the No. 2 Pentagon official to be acting secretary.

Trump thus will have an acting White House chief of staff, acting attorney general and acting secretary of Defense as he heads into his third year in office, reflecting a tumultuous top-level churn as the administration grapples with a partial government shutdown, a plummeting stock market and the president?s mounting legal woes."

Yeah, great time to be petty. I am amazed to be continually surprised by his incompetence, even 2 years in.

Hopefully all the personnel turnover effectively grinds the bureaucratic gears to a halt.

Market finally getting cheaper guys; monitor that q ratio and it's all to the good.

Gonna make it easier to do the necessary defense cuts when a real adult takes office too. A good read on American overreach is the Chalmers Johnson set of "blowback" and "the sorrows of empire". You're

Russia making military moves unopposed will be interesting, zeihan predicted that (sans placing a stooge in the Whitehouse, which I mean you gotta respect their moxie) 5 years ago...

Nk who cares, the only way a nuclear war starts is if we start a conventional war with them.

China (probably) economically ascendant is the biggest single problem imo but that's not really going to be clear for another 10 years and they may have demographic problems even worse than ours. They've positioned well for the near term from a resource management standpoint (e.g. holdings in Africa for Cobalt) but it's unclear what the effects of rising automation will be on their manufacturing dominance.

Merry Christmas to anyone that still visits the political thread of the off topic section of a small manufacturer of a dead gun platform of a dying industry